A Twitter RPG so “lazy,” it steals original artwork (Updated)

Imagine firing up a new game only to find that your original photographs or artwork were being used as part of the game’s plot line without your knowledge—and without even a proper citation. This is exactly what happened to several artists who posted their creations and designs online, only to have them snagged for use in an Internet-based, Twitter-fueled RPG called Tweeria.

Tweeria brands itself the “lazy Twitter RPG,” and it certainly lives up to that tagline. It requires little to no interaction other than posting to your own Twitter feed and conversing with other users on the social network. Every time you tweet, your “alter ego” in the game embarks on quests, slays monsters, and picks up items, just as you might do in a normal MMORPG. Tweeria currently has 14,000 registered users and receives about 18,000 visits a day.The game includes all of the basic elements of a fantasy role-playing game: mages, warriors, player-versus-player battles, achievement points, and mastery of skills—including, perhaps, a little digital pickpocketing.

Tweeria is, for the most part, a fresh and dynamic way to interact with a social network made even more attractive by the fact that it doesn't needlessly spam your Twitter followers. Where Tweeria comes up short, however, is in the fact that a majority of the art associated with the game appears to be lifted from other sources on the Internet. Some of the avatar artwork associated with certain classes and races that users can play is directly derived from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, while other images are lifted directly from the profiles of Deviant Art users, in many cases without any credit.

Image found on Tumblr regarding the Tweeria image controversy.

The buzz about the in-game images began on Twitter after it garnered some interest from the folks over at The Verge. Several readers had commented about the game’s copyright infringement, while a few users on Twitter openly tweeted about the fact that Tweeria contained artwork that had been previously seen in the WoW Trading Card Game. The news soon spread to Tumblr, where bloggers posted screenshots of one DeviantArt user who went around messaging others and asking if they were aware that Tweeria had been using their artwork. “Thank you for your information, I didn’t authorise any sale except on deviantart. I’m trying to contact tweeria now,” wrote one user. Wrote another, “I certainly did not give any permission resell [sic] my work. And what’s worse, a page full of stolen pictures.”

The fact that Tweeria was taking images had been discovered a few days earlier. Michael Sacco, a creative developer for the WoW Trading Card Game from Cryptozoic entertainment, discovered about a week ago that official art from the game was actually being used in Tweeria. “I loaded up the site and went to choose a character and saw that the majority of player class portraits were from WoW TCG cards,” he said in an e-mail to Ars. The lifted artwork included a photo of a female elf warrior, used originally as artwork for a Night Elf Warrior in the WoW Trading Card Game, as well as a human female mage, which looks exactly like the female Mage character used for the Netherwind Presence card.

“I alerted the Tweeria twitter [account] the same day and they responded that Blizzard’s copyright agreement left them in the clear because it was a ‘personal, non-commercial project,’” continued Sacco. “Given that we license through Blizzard, any copyright disputes have to go through them, and Tweeria knows it.”

The developers at Tweeria referred back to Blizzard’s copyright and trademark policy for its use of WoW’s images, pointing to the text that says the company grants them a “license to use and display, for home, noncommercial and personal use only, one copy of any material and/or software that you may download from this site.” Despite the "one copy" language, Tweeria developers apparently argued that this policy allowed them to reuse images in their own game.

Other lifted artwork can be found in avatars like Tweeria’s female Human Warrior, which a Google Image Search linked back to DeviantArt user LeeJJ, whose signature has also been cropped out of the image used in the game. Another reverse search for some of the artwork featured on Tweeria’s page also linked back to several other Deviant Art accounts, like this picture of an elf warrior assassin, originally drawn by user HeroDees.

Enlarge/ It's because it's being used on Tweeria's site as an avatar for the elf assassin.

Tweeria also appears to be flouting DeviantArt's copyright policy, which states that users, “may not reproduce, distribute, publicly display or perform, or prepare derivative works based on any of the Content including any such works without the express, written consent of deviantART or the appropriate owner of copyright in such works.” On its actual copyright policy page, DeviantArt also notes that copyright infringement includes “placing a photograph or creative work online without proper permission” and “adapting a creative work of one medium to another” or “modifying or editing a creative work without proper permission.”

How did Tweeria end up using so many images? Its parent company, Tweenk, certainly didn't contact the artists whose images it used for its game, as exhibited by the screenshot above, but some of the uses may have been unintentional. The game developers accept user submitted photos, which may or may not have contributed to the rampant copyright infringements.

A few days ago, the developers at Tweeria posted a not-actually-that-apologetic blog post, claiming that the issues occurred because Tweeria is a “small, private, non-commercial and mostly experiment project of twitter-based RPG… we did not expect the popularity that we experience now.” The statement added that the developers “do not want to violate copyright and we greatly respect any kind of art”—but it offered no plans to remove images unless artists contacted Tweeria first and asked to have their imagery removed.

Neither Blizzard nor the DeviantArt users involved responded to Ars by publication time. Their images still remain a part of the game experience and there's a “Based on World of Warcraft image files and texts” disclaimer stamped on the bottom of the Tweeria website. However, the site doesn't appear to include a long list of Deviant Art users who had their work included in the web-based game without their knowledge, and Tweenk’s “e-mail us if you happen to have a problem” approach doesn't seem like it offers much legal—or moral—ground to stand on.

Tweenk claims that it will work closely with an art community to create a "gaming and social platform both for players and artists. But the fact remains that the company still hasn't admitted that using images lifted from others without permission is a problem, even if it's not making a profit.

Update, December 27, 2012 10:00 California time:

Ars received an e-mail statement from Alex Shteinikov at Twee Game stating the following:

“Up to this moment I have already deleted a plenty pieces of unauthorized art and will continue to do so. On the other hand I've got some permissions from authors and feel that people generally want to contribute their works into the project…It takes much time to check all the license limitations for each artwork. As the result and unfortunately for gamers, I've closed the option for artworks uploading and got massive delay in approval of small items.”

He went on to write: “Tweeria can't move forward to bigger project without cleaning all of those art licensing issues. I must have tighter copyright control. All these tasks are already in my schedule.”

91 Reader Comments

That's why creative commons has multiple flavors of licenses. There are flavors that allow or don't allow derivative works. There are flavors that allow or don't allow commercial use. Of course if you don't allow derivative works IMHO that kind of defeats the point, but in any case, it isn't a one size fits all thing.

You've also missed (or misinterpreted) something major in your comparison, as I said before. You kind of hit on it but completely miss the implication when you talked about a mastery study vs a photo. If I redistribute your GPL'd code as a part of my GPL'd project, that's a photo, not a master study. I haven't re-created your work, I've simply taken it.

GPL is almost exactly analogous to the non-commercial creative commons license.

People, relax!!I've read some answers believing I'm a kid, well I'm not. I'm 33 and I grew up SHARING things on the internet; half the coding I know it was because SOMEONE put it there for me to use it (and learn).

Of course there are free images and of course I'm looking for them but let me say that your hatred (and the assumption that I was a kid) made you ignore half of my comment.

I defend that if I'm not going to get no economic benefit I should be able to use any art. People say I don't respect it.. I love it!! I am unable to do it so I want to use it for the whole world to see!! (stupid example: I will buy any CE with an artbook because the artists deserve it).

koolraap wrote:

I know a fantastic artist. What I'm going to do is steal your code, put his artwork in it and make millions of dollars.

Read my post again, if he wants it to do a free app/game and to help build a story with his images I would give the code for free anyway.

I will repeat it because I think you missed it; when Internet started 17 years ago we would share everything (unless the creator wanted economic benefit from that) and would spent countless hours to help free projects; I believe artist deserve the credit but I can't understand all that rage against my comment, please read my post again because you didn't understand it.

I'm comfortable with paying an artist $50 for their three hours of work. I'm also comfortable with paying $50 for a 90 minute concert.

The reason the umbrage is different when it comes to Deviant Art artwork being "stolen" and RIAA-produced music being "stolen" is because the artists who put their stuff up on Deviant Art are generally comfortable with their work being used for non-commercial purposes, particularly if you e-mail them and ask (for instance, if you want to use it for a forum avatar). This is decidedly not true with RIAA-produced music, which the RIAA has a history of attacking over even if the use meets the specifications of Fair Use under Federal law.

If we were talking about some indie artist with no major label's music being used in a Hollywood movie without permission, the umbrage would likely exceed even what's been demonstrated here. Particularly as said indie artist would likely have been thrilled to allow Hollywood to use their music and on the cheap (or for free), but now just feels used.

You have to recognize that moral outrage is going to be predicated upon the perceptions people hold of both parties. That's just how morality (and outrage) work.

I'm comfortable with paying an artist $50 for their three hours of work. I'm also comfortable with paying $50 for a 90 minute concert.

The reason the umbrage is different when it comes to Deviant Art artwork being "stolen" and RIAA-produced music being "stolen" is because the artists who put their stuff up on Deviant Art are generally comfortable with their work being used for non-commercial purposes, particularly if you e-mail them and ask (for instance, if you want to use it for a forum avatar). This is decidedly not true with RIAA-produced music, which the RIAA has a history of attacking over even if the use meets the specifications of Fair Use under Federal law.

If we were talking about some indie artist with no major label's music being used in a Hollywood movie without permission, the umbrage would likely exceed even what's been demonstrated here. Particularly as said indie artist would likely have been thrilled to allow Hollywood to use their music and on the cheap (or for free), but now just feels used.

You have to recognize that moral outrage is going to be predicated upon the perceptions people hold of both parties. That's just how morality (and outrage) work.

You are correct that such things affect the mainstream press and the opinions of technically ill-informed. I just have higher expectations of the Ars crowd. Either copyright is a property right or it isn't. Said right either deserves legal protection or it doesn't. One of the side-effects of a robust property right is that you can be a dick about what you do with your property (I'm looking at you, RIAA people) without losing your rights.

You know, when you accept user submitted images, you should be quite clear that whoever is doing it must have rights over said piece. If you're not the author, you need his permission, that's usually how it works.Unfortunately, it is like the deviantArt user nebezial said: "that's the internet for you, people will steal your stuff"

You are correct that such things affect the mainstream press and the opinions of technically ill-informed. I just have higher expectations of the Ars crowd. Either copyright is a property right or it isn't. Said right either deserves legal protection or it doesn't. One of the side-effects of a robust property right is that you can be a dick about what you do with your property (I'm looking at you, RIAA people) without losing your rights.

I'm not enamored of copyright as it currently stands. There are probably very few readers at Ars who are. The ones who don't understand what it's for and why it's important (I both understand what it's for and why it's important, I just don't like the current construct) are few and far between. But they're also not the ones turning this into a morality trap, as the RIAA has tried to do. That sort of chicanery requires a clear understanding of the construct and a deliberate effort to misrepresent it to the public. The public, once it figures out the jig, isn't going to be particularly forgiving. Artists as a whole, particularly visual artists who use Deviant Art, have not yet attempted anything approaching that level of disingenuity. So they receive the full support of the public.

Full stop. We can argue over the value of the construct ad nauseum, but it's not going to sway public opinion. You'll note the "hypocrisy" is fully intact if you posit the "theft" of Metallica's work against the "theft" of a struggling indie band's. It has little to do with commercial success, though, which is a connection that remains damnably faint in the eyes of the RIAA.

Angry Birds is a free game. It is also a gigantically successful commercial enterprise. Even if they don't charge money for the game, directly or indirectly, that's not relevant.

The whole "wait until the artists contact" thing is nonsense, too. That's basically saying that they should be allowed to flaunt whatever laws they feel like until they're told to quit it. How juvenile. They should take some responsibility for their actions, which they might finally be doing.

I defend that if I'm not going to get no economic benefit I should be able to use any art. People say I don't respect it.. I love it!! I am unable to do it so I want to use it for the whole world to see!! (stupid example: I will buy any CE with an artbook because the artists deserve it).

I don't understand, if you aren't going to gain any benefit from it, why are you using it?

What's the difference between illegally copying stuff and stealing stuff now again? I thought we settled on the agreement that copyright infringement never equals theft. No matter how obviously unlawful the act is.

One makes you a douchebag and the other makes you a criminal.

So, because copyright infringement is a criminal offence your response indicates that theft isn't a criminal offence. That's a pretty odd definition. Can we please agree that copyright infringement is copyright infringement and theft is theft and they are not the same thing?

The only reason to call it theft is if you are RIAA or MPAA or some such organisation.

Technically it's a civil tort rather than a criminal offence, but that's still one step up from just douchebag

Florence Ion / Florence was a former Reviews Editor at Ars, with a focus on Android, gadgets, and essential gear. She received a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and lives in the Bay Area.